Background

Innovation Engineering is a framework created by UC Berkeley’s Entrepreneurship and Technology department - it guides students to create something new, from products, to startups, and more.

Defining business goals

Collaborating with two designers, we led an end-to-end redesign and rebranding of the website that increased engagement by 140% with a user base of 3k+.

Discussing with the department lead, I began understanding business goals and reasons around redesigning the website.

1. Emphasize the impact of Innovation Engineering
2. Target user friction during the student learning process
3. Engage industry partners to sponsor student Innovation Engineering projects.

Problem

Discovering insight through user research

As a framework focuses on education and bringing innovation to the real world, the website targets students, professors, and industry sponsors. To align with user needs before ideating, we conducted usability testing of the initial site with stakeholders to understand current pain points.

Synthesizing our research we came to understand that the concept of Innovation Engineering is unclear. There was a lack of understanding from students and company sponsors in regards to how they can see themselves using the framework, where it comes from, and why it matters to them.

Target Improvements

Addressing pain points seen throughout our research and usability testing, we came up with three main themes to target within our redesign.

Website structure and hierarchy

Improving user flow, we developed an updated website structure and hierarchy prior to integrating the content of the site.

Main changes

About tab after Home

Provides greater logical flow.
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Adding Resources tab

Central source to better engage and educate students with accessible project tools.

Adding Affiliates tab

Strengthens stakeholder connection by showcasing those using the framework.

Showcasing IE Applications

Demonstrates the impact of Innovation Engineering through a visualization of impactful projects & applications to the world.

Low Fidelity Prototyping

Brainstorming solutions: Wireframes

Take a glimpse into our wireframing process during our ideation phase.

Iteration Process

Innovation Engineering Applications

Resources — Framework Templates

Affiliations

Branding

We also created a set of branding guidelines including color, fonts, and logos. Our colors include bold tones such as blue and orange to emphasize upscaling and innovation while keeping a professional look. The logo also features an upward arrow to showcase novelty and success.

Final Prototype

Before

After

Homepage

Addressing pain points

Uses language that promotes action to influence the user to learn more about Innovation Engineering.

Describes Innovation Engineering in simple terms helping those who have never heard of the framework.

Directly states our target audience to avoid confusion of who the website is for.

Utilizes simple, clean branding with consistent colors and visualizations.

Avoids overwhelming the user with excess information/text on the home page.

About

Gives context on the foundations of Innovation Engineering.

Resources

Aims to educate the user on the framework with videos and project templates.

Affiliations

Allows the user to understand what organizations, programs, and institutions are connected to Innovation Engineering.

Founder

Gives the user a concise understanding of the Innovation Engineering founder and how to get in contact.

Learnings

The power of user interviews.

Coming into this internship, I did not have any background on Innovation Engineering. Talking to students, professors, and industry partners was essential to me to understand the viewpoints of those who directly use the framework. It's important to listen to the users you are designing for and take into consideration their needs from an unbiased perspective.

Communication

Throughout this project, I was able to work with a team from a variety of backgrounds. With others not familiar with the design process, I had to make sure to communicate my steps and clearly present areas of opportunity that came from my user research. Communication goes a long way and helps everyone to be on the same page.

Innovation Engineering